Learning Love
by CosmicJourney
Summary: Bellamy isn't good at accepting affection. Clarke thinks she's the problem. As always, a simple conversation could solve everything.


He was always fierce and bold and smart- it wasn't often he got a chance to be soft. Certainly, he was often afraid or vulnerable, but he didn't let it show, didn't let it get in the way of his leadership. At least, that's how it was at first. Clarke didn't really see it, there in the beginning, but it became more and more apparent, the closer they got.

He was very peculiar about who was allowed to touch him, and for how long.

Bellamy hid it well beneath the building of his hedonistic following, but as focus slowly turned to survival and communication with the Ark, there were signs that Clarke couldn't quite ignore.

Once, just after the disastrous attempt at a peace treaty with Anya and her people, Bellamy had been preparing to leave camp with the other hunters. The camp was particularly noisy that day, so he didn't hear her when she called his name from her tent. She had needed him for something- something she couldn't remember now- and the frustration and stress of the past few days made her grab his wrist more firmly than was strictly necessary.

Immediately, the hard planes of his body went tense, and he whipped around to look at her, his conversation with the other hunters forgotten. His dark eyes flickered to her face, then to where her hand encircled his wrist, and Clarke really had meant to ask him something- but his reaction was startling, and when he ripped his arm from her grasp, she couldn't do much more than stare after him.

Some time later, he earned a deep slash across his bicep. He didn't tell her how, but she learned afterward that one of the younger kids had been messing with the guns and accidently fired one. Bellamy obviously didn't want the kid to get in trouble, so Clarke never brought up that she knew.

Bellamy was sitting in the drop ship with his sleeve pulled up the expose the bloody wound when Clarke brushed her way in, and she wasted no time in sterilizing her hands and getting ready to stitch the wound. He watched her silently, his face a bit pale, and looked away when she kneeled next to him and began to run the thread through the gash.

He grunted but didn't flinch as she worked, until one particularly harsh tug had him jump and hiss softly. She stopped, giving him an apologetic glance. "Sorry," she added for good measure before getting ready to continue.

Bellamy wet his lips, seemed to think about what he wanted to say. "Don't be," he finally said. A good response, Clarke thought. Succinct and meaningful. However, he didn't stop there. "You're good at this."

She looked at him a bit longer this time, wondering if she should be insulted by his praise of her medical skills that had been proven time and time again. It didn't occur to her that he may have meant something else until he spoke again in a voice that implied much more than his meager words supplied.. "But you don't have to be so gentle, you know."

Clarke was surprised by her sudden need to swallow down the emotion she felt welling in her throat, hiding her reaction behind a tight, thin smile. She didn't feel the need to dignify the statement with a response, instead mulling it over in her head as she worked.

They didn't speak through the rest of the stitching process, and the need to say something weighed heavier and heavier until, once she had bandages wrapped around the wound, she spoke up. "What did you mean by that?"

If he was surprised, he didn't show it, simply glancing away from her, rolling his shoulder experimentally. "Just meant I'm not really a kid," he gave a sardonic smirk. "You don't have to coddle me, Princess."

She just nodded, completely at a loss as he stood and sauntered out of the ship with a quick thanks. Treacherous thoughts gnawed at her, adding up what she knew into an anticlimactic conclusion.

Touch, if not offered from Octavia, made him uncomfortable. That wasn't unusual in and of itself. But the way he'd behaved, it seemed like he didn't expect kindness, didn't think he deserved it. Clarke resolved, albeit unconsciously, to offer him contact more often- a brush of shoulders, a playful shove, anything to resolve the uneasy feeling his disregard left her with.

When they were reunited at Camp Jaha, that system of casual touches became something more as the boundaries between them gave way with the last of their reservations about one another. They were closer than Clarke had ever felt possible- but still he held back, didn't push their relationship forward, just let them gravitate in this strange, comfortable region of platonic intimacy.

It made her think her worries were not unfounded.

Affection meant something to him that Clarke wasn't sure she'd ever be able to truly understand. The slightest brush of her hand across his cheek had him closing his eyes and leaning into her, as though mapping the sensation, cataloguing the way it felt to be loved and cherished. Anything more than that had him closing off, backing away, unwilling or unable to accept what she was offering him.

She didn't want to worry- didn't want to think that she was misconstruing his responses to mean something more sinister. Maybe he had a problem with germs- though it didn't seem likely, considering all the markedly unhygienic tasks he was stuck with- or maybe she just always managed to startle him. There were hundreds of explanations.

No matter how often she told herself that, she couldn't help worrying he was afraid of her.

The day she tried to confront him about it dawned cold and misty, forcing the residents of Camp Jaha to either stay in their tents or work hard to keep warm. Clarke, bundled in a jacket several sizes too big, found Bellamy before he went out. The two stayed in his tent, talking about anything and everything, before Clarke sat on his bed and decided to cut to the chase.

"I've never known anyone as alone as you." It was only after a moment of watching his face morph into something cold and guarded that she realized she'd passed some unspoken line between them. He thought she was judging him, making a comment on his life before the drop. In a way she was, but it wasn't aimed at him.

Bellamy must have seen her seeking to backpedal because his face softened and he looked away, dark eyes skittering down to some place past her left shoulder. "I'm not alone," he said, moving to sit beside her. It made it easier not to look at her.

She wet her lips, shifted slightly, a thousand things she could say on the tip of her tongue. "I mean, I've never met someone who had to fight so hard not to be alone." It sounded sad- horribly sad. In that sense it embodied all the truth she needed it to.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed convulsively, his lips parting for a moment before closing again. His fidgeting pressed her to reach out and take one of his hands in her own, and just like that, he was still. A faint tremor ran through him and Clarke was suddenly terrified that she'd frightened him off, pushed too hard, broke through one too many defenses.

"I'm not-" he stopped himself, coughed, looked everywhere except for at her. "I don't know- I don't know how to respond the way you want me to." For a moment, it seemed he was referring to her statements, but then he glanced down at their joined hands. He shivered again. The cold probably wasn't the culprit.

"Do you want me to stop touching you?" Her voice was soft, nonthreatening, but he seemed startled all the same- and then terrified. He shook his head rapidly, and Clarke nodded, feeling as though some suspicion had been confirmed. "Than why are you hiding, Bellamy?"

Anger flitted over his brow briefly, followed by frustration. "I'm not hiding, I just don't know- I just. I just don't know."

She released his hand in a sudden burst of irritation. "Why don't you know?" Bellamy flinched a bit, and even then she wasn't sure if her tone was too harsh. "Who hurt you, Bellamy?" He scoffed, but she pressed on. "Why do you close yourself off whenever I get too close?" As if to prove a point, she raised her hand sharply, and he closed his eyes- and then she realized.

For a long moment they stayed like that, Clarke with her hand in the tense air between them, Bellamy sitting perfectly still and breathing harshly, his eyes shut tight. Slowly, she brought her hand to his face. She rested it against his cheek, watched as his eyes fluttered and a tiny, relieved sigh slipped through. "You just don't know," Clarke whispered, awed and saddened. "You just don't know how to be loved."

Whatever response he had was cut off when her hand drifted up to card through his hair, eliciting a moan that sounded equal parts tormented and relieved. She lifted her other hand to his neck, tracing over the freckled skin, feeling the soft thrum of his pulse beneath her fingertips. She explored his face with gentle and light touches, feeling every scar and the structure of his bones. Tears were clinging to his lashes, and if he dared open his eyes they would fall uninhibited. "You're allowed to have this," Clarke murmured, entranced by his every response- his every wrecked, desperate response. "I promise."

The noise he made was a little bit choked, a little bit heartbreaking, a little bit perfect as he melted against her, let her run her hands over his arms and back and face- let her make up for all the touch that had long been denied him. Then she tilted his chin up and kissed him long and deep and slow, tasted the salt of his tears on his lips, drank in his every sigh and moan.

If she had to teach him how to be loved, so be it. She started that night.

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